Among the top issues facing federal agency financial management leaders is the ability to the ability to successfully recruit and retain a workforce that can effectively address today’s challenges, according to a new study.
“Declining resources and increasing requirements are dual pressures on the financial management workforce. Add to that lower morale across the federal government, increasing retirement eligibility, and a time-consuming hiring to climb just to keep up with turnover,” said the report from the Association of Government Accountants with the Grant Thornton consulting company. In the poll of some 350 financial management officials, including in-person interviews and online surveys, finding and keeping the right workforce was the most often cited challenge facing CFOs.
Among other top challenges are budgetary uncertainty and the difficulty it poses to long-term planning and implementing IT systems within budget and on schedule and getting them to produce the intended results.
Said the report: “New management improvement initiatives, part of the Obama administration’s ‘new management agenda,’ also test CFOs. The designs of fresh initiatives related to shared services, improper payments, risk management, grants management, benchmarking and transparency all enhance the role of the CFO. But they also add to existing CFO workloads.”
The survey report is here: http://www.agacgfm.org/AGA/Research/CFOSurvey2014.pdf
